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每日外刊 | 0426-报告：近半数美国人正呼吸着不安全水平的空气污染物

外贸达人Cici

2025-04-25

导读：空气污染正成为21世纪最紧迫的公共卫生挑战之一。

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空气污染正成为21世纪最紧迫的公共卫生挑战之一。在全球范围内，约99%的人口呼吸着超过世界卫生组织安全标准的空气，而发达国家亦未能幸免。以美国为例，近年来极端天气频发、工业排放监管松弛，使得原本改善的空气质量再度恶化，揭示出气候政策与公共健康之间的深刻矛盾。

科学研究表明，细颗粒物（PM2.5）和臭氧不仅加剧呼吸道疾病，还与心血管病变、神经系统损伤甚至癌症风险上升密切相关。然而，污染并非均匀分布——少数族裔与低收入社区往往成为工业废气和交通尾气的“牺牲区”，这种环境不公的背后，是长期系统性政策忽视的缩影。

气候变化进一步放大了危机。热浪延长了臭氧生成周期，野火肆虐则将森林碳汇转化为弥散全国的烟尘。2023年加拿大山火导致的“跨国污染”事件，暴露出生态灾难无国界的现实。与此同时，环保机构的预算削减与监测网络萎缩，使许多地区陷入“数据真空”，公众在无形中暴露于未知风险。

正文阅读

Nearly half of Americans breathing in unsafe levels of air pollutants – report

报告：近半数美国人正呼吸着不安全水平的空气污染物

Almost half of Americans are breathing in dangerous levels of air pollutants, a new report shows, a rise compared with a year ago and likely to further increase in coming years thanks to the climate crisis and the Trump administration’s sweeping environmental rollbacks. Just over 156 million people live in neighborhoods with unhealthy levels of soot or smog – a 16% rise compared with last year and the highest number in a decade, according to the American Lung Association (ALA) annual state of the air report.

一份新报告显示，近半数美国人正呼吸着危险水平的空气污染物，这一比例较去年有所上升，且由于气候危机和特朗普政府大规模的环境政策倒退，未来几年可能进一步加剧。美国肺脏协会（ALA）的年度空气质量报告指出，超过1.56亿人居住在细颗粒物或雾霾水平不健康的社区——较去年增加16%，达到十年来的最高值。

Soot and smog can cause premature death and increase the risk of an array of serious medical conditions such as asthma attacks, heart attacks and strokes, preterm births and impaired cognitive functioning in later life. Particle pollution also increases the risk of lung cancer. Both pollutants are made worse by heat waves and wildfires – extreme weather events getting more intense and widespread due to human-made global heating.

细颗粒物和雾霾可导致过早死亡，并增加一系列严重健康问题的风险，如哮喘发作、心脏病、中风、早产以及晚年认知功能受损。细颗粒物污染还会增加患肺癌的风险。这两种污染物都会因热浪和野火而加剧 —— 而由于人为造成的全球变暖，极端天气事件正变得更加剧烈和普遍。

Every year, the ALA grades exposure to unhealthy levels of ground-level smog (ozone pollution), and year-round and short-term spikes in soot (fine particle pollution/PM2.5) over a three-year period (2021 to 2023). Its latest analysis found that almost 43m people live in areas with failing grades for all three measures. A person of color is more than twice as likely as a white American to live in a neighborhood with unhealthy levels of smog and soot. But Latino Americans are the most impacted, and three times more likely to be breathing in both toxic air pollutants.

每年，美国肺脏协会会对近三年（2021年至2023年）地面臭氧污染（雾霾）、全年及短期细颗粒物污染（PM2.5）峰值的暴露水平进行评级。最新分析发现，近4300万人居住在三项指标均不合格的地区。有色人种居住在雾霾和细颗粒物污染超标社区的可能性是美国白人的两倍多，而拉美裔美国人受影响最大，同时暴露于这两种有毒污染物的可能性是白人的三倍。